Roman

Artist's daughter Penelope Keeling can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children - and learned to accept them as they are. Yet she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old-age. And when she discovers that her most treasured possession, her father's painting, The Shell Seekers, is now worth a small fortune, it is Penelope who must make the decisions that will determine whether her family can continue to survive as a family, or be split apart.

Anton Chekhov's only full-length novel, this Penguin Classics edition of The Shooting Party is translated and edited by Ronald Wilks, with an introduction by John Sutherland. The Shooting Party centres on Olga, the pretty young daughter of a drunken forester on a country estate, and her fateful relationships with the men in her life. Adored by Urbenin, the estate manager, whom she marries to escape the poverty of her home, she is also desired by the dissolute Count Karneyev and by Zinovyev, a magistrate, who knows the secret misery of her marriage. When an attempt is made on Olga's life in the woods, it seems impossible to discover the perpetrator in an impenetrable web of lust, deceit, loathing and double-dealing. One of Chekhov's earliest experiments in fiction combines the classic elements of a gripping mysterywith a short story of corruption, concealed love and fatal jealousy. Ronald Wilks's brilliant new translation of this work is the first in over seventy years. It brilliantly captures the immediacy of the dialogue that Chekhov was later to develop into his great dramas. This edition also includes an introduction by John Sutherland, suggestions for further reading and explanatory notes. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was born in Taganrog, a port on the sea of Azov. In 1879 he travelled to Moscow, where he entered the medical faculty of the university, graduating in 1884. During his university years, he supported his family by contributing humorous stories and sketches to magazines. He published his first volume of stories, Motley Tales, in 1886, and a year later his second volume In the Twilight, for which he received the Pushkin Prize. Today his plays, including 'Uncle Vanya', 'The Seagull', and 'The Cherry Orchard' are recognised as masterpieces the world over. If you enjoyed The Shooting Party, you might like Chekhov's Plays, also available in Penguin Classics.

Introduced by Claire-Louise Bennett, experience one new mother's psychological journey in this lost 1930 foremother of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. 'Extraordinary. A fascinating and unexpected delight.' Lucy Ellmann'Haunting and evocative, this is a timeless portrayal of madness.' Catherine Cho'A startling, luminous and magnetic novel about the complexity of motherhood.' Yiyun Li'With its deep musicality, Coleman's unforgettable voice was years ahead of its time.' Sinead GleesonThe only thing to do is to put hammers in the porridge and when there are enough hammers we shall break down the windows and all of us shall dance in the snow. Some days, Marthe Gail believes she is God; others, Jesus Christ. Her baby, she thinks, is dead. The red light is shining. There are bars on the window. And the voices keep talking. Time blurs; snow falls. The doctors say it is a breakdown; that this is Gorestown State Hospital. Her fellow patients become friends and enemies, moving between the Day Room and Dining Hall, East Hall and West Side, avoiding the Strong Room. Her husband visits and shows her a lock of her baby's hair, but she doesn't remember, yet - until she can make it upstairs, ascending towards release ... Shocking and hilarious, tragic and visceral, this experimental portrait of motherhood and mental illness written in 1930 has never felt more visionary.

The dazzling finale of the international bestselling series: The Mirror Visitor"The Mirror Visitor stands on the same shelf as Harry Potter."-Elle Magazine. "Strange and compelling."-The Guardian"World-building on an epic scale."-The Bookseller"Thrilling, unpredictable and disconcerting. This dense finale will leave no reader indifferent."-Master Edition Strasbourg In the closing volume of her thrilling saga, Christelle Dabos transports us back to her wonderful fantasy world. Readers will be gripped by the all too human trials and tribulations of the protagonists. Ophelia and Thorn brave a complex universe fraught with allegories, in their quest to uncover the truth. As the walls of mistrust that stood between them lay in ruins, Ophelia and Thorn fall in love. However, they must keep their love a secret and continue their investigation into God's code and the mysterious figure called the Other, and its devastating powers of destruction. But how will they find it, without even knowing what it looks like? More united than ever Ophelia and Thorn arrive at the Deviations Observatory. Here, behind an apparently benign facade, is a laboratory where terrifying, cruel experiments are conducted. Will the lovers discover the truth they've been searching for, and will they be able to bring balance back to the world of the Arcs?

The Story of a New Name, the second book of the Neapolitan Quartet, picks up the story where My Brilliant Friend left off. Lila has recently married and made her entree into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighbourhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. In the Neapolitan Quartet, Elena Ferrante gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.

Summer, 1921. Eight-year-old Lucy Gault clings to glens and woods above Lahardane - the home her family is being forced to abandon. She knows Gaults are no longer welcome in Ireland and that danger threatens. Lucy, however, is headstrong and decides that somehow she must force her parents into staying. But the path she chooses ends in disaster.

The Story of the Stone (c.1760) is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The first part of the story, The Golden Days, begins the tale of Bao-yu, a gentle young boy who prefers girls to Confucian studies, and his two cousins: Bao-chai, his parents' choice of a wife for him, and the ethereal beauty Dai-yu. Through the changing fortunes of the Jia family, this rich, magical work sets worldly events - love affairs, sibling rivalries, political intrigues, even murder - within the context of the Buddhist understanding that earthly existence is an illusion and karma determines the shape of our lives.

Sunday Times Novel of the YearLonglisted for the Man Booker PrizeA magnificent, century-spanning saga about a love triangle that spawns a myth, and a family mystery, across generations. In the late summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge friend Cecil Valance, a charismatic young poet, to visit his family home. The weekend will be one of excitements and confusions for everyone, but it is on George's sixteen-year-old sister Daphne that it will have the most lasting impact.

As the decades pass, Daphne and those around her endure startling changes in fortune and circumstance, and as reputations rise and fall, the events of that long-ago summer become part of a legendary story. The Stranger's Child is Hollinghurst's masterly exploration of English culture, taste and attitudes. Epic in sweep, it intimately portrays a luminous but changing world and the ways memory - and myth - can be built and broken.

It is a powerful and utterly absorbing modern classic.